you placed a crown
upon my head
making me feel
like i was the queen
of your castles
little did i know
they were made
of nothing but sand
then the tide crashed in
and swept them away
hushed promises
forgotten by morning.

are there more than 60 songs
related to you and me
is that the reason
i skipped a lot
just to forget
just to dismiss
just to miss
for we shared a lot
for we kissed a lot
for those songs in exact moments
are perfect
just like us
before
in the past
not now
maybe i can try to listen again
but not for you anymore
for those times
for the memories
the end

Living on the Scandinavian streets have
humbled her.
No Christmas cards with
a 20 spot anymore.
No trust fund from
Mom and Dad.
All the money vanished like
the last spider of *****,
like a dropped bottle of beer.
She could go to a
shelter by herself,
but she chooses
life on the
streets in the
brutal winter to be
with her Swedish boyfriend.
Love is lunacy--sometimes frozen.
Two dead friends last year on
a mad moonlit night.
Human icicles on
the Iowa City streets.

One time while drunk,
her and I stole
the neighbor's canoe.
We had her little
black dog with us.
I dubbed him,
Senator Ted Kennedy;
probably because we
were all drunks,
(not the dog) I don't think...
We wrestled the canoe into
the Iowa River, and
immediately proceeded to
tip it over.
The Canoe sank like
a bad bet by Hunter S. Thompson.
We could've easily drowned, but we
laughed our ***** off,
choking and splashing,
except for Teddy, who swam
for Boston.

What was supposed to be a life time with you
Will now just be a lifetime of what ifs
Should have beens
And memories of time spent
That’ll never be again

you were the moonlit shore
and i had been drowning at sea
nothing had ever been
more beautiful
as if poseidon
had moulded you himself
the storm in your eyes
my own salvation.

As bitter brew meets parted lips, do tears accompany my sips?
In shadows cast by memories, do cries echo through the eclipse?

With every whispered plea for closure, does anguish tighten its grip?
Why did you choose her over us, leaving love's vessel to slowly rip?

In this café of shattered dreams, do my heart's cries reach your ears?
Or are they lost in the cacophony of our unspoken fears?

As bitter brew meets parted lips, do you taste the salt of my tears?
Or have you moved on, leaving me to drown in love's endless spheres?

The world around me has become so loud,
Drowning out the sound of my existence,
As if I don’t exist at all.
I’m still there,
Ripples in the puddles I drown in,
Whispers of wind through trees I fall from,
A rotten fruit.
I’m hidden somewhere in the Earth,
Suffocating beneath the weight of the soil and my memories.
I don’t want them to go away,
I don’t want the pain of the past to leave me,
But it’s running down my legs,
A thick red liquid,
It’s infecting my dreams,
Smothering me with smoke.
I need it to be quiet,
Let me breathe.
The dull ache I’ve spent a lifetime keeping at bay,
Chained deep within my brain,
Rising to the surface,
Screeching along its tracks as it careens towards me.
I feel so small,
So fragile,
So weak.
I can’t hear myself think.

all my past
      imposes on my breath today

i enter a grand mosaic public building
        and on goes my medical face mask
i join the back of the queue with my documents in one hand
            and my numbered butcher ticket
                          in the other
i admire the mosaics
               a jarring tide of art against the bureaucratic purpose
                     of these rooms
gauzed in with own product exhaust
       all my past  is attending    
exhumed
  patted  into my breath
    baiting remembrance with unsubtle notes
for example :
   integrated spittings of 'drum' tobacco (i quit a decade ago)
horning catches of cologne every boy used as a teen
seasonal scents  unweaned from deep in my system
(some reigned in from the different countries
                                                    i lived in or visited)
then i am frisked back to infancy   with breast milk and rusks
it's all there    a basking flippancy
all there in musk about my face
  one fragrance after another

it's an honest relief
     to host an alternative to my 'old man' breath
           but odd and concerning
something of the brain ?